Carbs: Low Or Slow?

It's time to take your toaster out of hiding and perfect your marinara sauce.

Low-carb diets that have made bread, cereal and pasta the enemies for the last few years are losing their popularity. A new, more balanced way of eating, which involves slow carbs, is taking their place.

It's time to celebrate toast, pancakes, sandwiches, and most of all, beer. Carbs are back.

Read on to learn about how eating the slow-carb way can help you maintain a healthy body, both inside and out.

the slow lane for health

Although not a new trend, doctors and health professionals are now strongly advocating the slow-carb diet, or what nutritionists refer to as the "low-glycemic-load" or "low glycemic-index" diet.

The slow-carb diet is actually not a diet at all; rather, it is more of a balanced way of eating. Instead of banning certain foods from your diet, it simply classifies them based on their glycemic index (GI). The GI reveals how high a carbohydrate can raise blood glucose levels within two hours. Foods that break down quickly during digestion have a high GI, and those that break down more slowly have a low GI.

But before you inhale a danish, read on. Not all carbs are created equal.

When they are digested, carbohydrates form glucose, which is transported around the body in the blood before it is absorbed by the cells and converted into energy.

The more refined the carbohydrate is, the faster it releases glucose into the bloodstream (high GI). This causes blood sugar levels to rise and fall very quickly. The more complex the carbohydrate is (low GI), the longer it takes for the body to digest it — this provides a slower release of energy.

Health gurus recommend eating foods with a relatively low GI level, such as whole grains, oats, fruits, vegetables, and lentils. These foods are digested slowly and provide the body with a more sustained energy supply. Foods in this category also help you feel fuller for a longer period of time, which can kill those afternoon snack attacks that leave you running to the nearest donut shop.

Foods that have a high GI index — including white bread, refined breakfast cereals, pastries, and other concentrated sugars — are digested rapidly, causing a surge of blood glucose and insulin in the body. This puts strain on the pancreas (the organ that removes sugar from the bloodstream) and causes spikes in blood sugar levels. Ever had a sugar high, only to crash an hour later and feel more tired than before? The foods in this category usually have a similar effect.